Thu Feb 24, 2022 – 12:52 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) — Texas’ ban on aborting babies with detectable heartbeats is now being reviewed by the Lone Star State’s highest court, months after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to remain in effect while lower courts debated its constitutional merits.
Senate Bill 8, the Texas Heartbeat Act, requires abortionists to screen for a preborn baby’s heartbeat and prohibits abortion if a heartbeat can be heard (generally as early as six weeks), with exceptions only for medical emergencies.
Its unique enforcement mechanism, which “exclusively” empowers private citizens to bring civil suits against abortionists instead of state prosecutions, has been credited for the Supreme Court’s September decision not to block it from taking effect. State health data indicates that Texas abortions dropped by 60% in just SB8’s first month on the books, thanks to it inducing abortion chains Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman’s Health to temporarily suspend abortions past six weeks in the state.
Oral arguments last November indicated that a majority of Supreme Court justices were at least somewhat sympathetic to the state-level challenges but less so to the federal one, and so the Court ultimately dismissed the federal
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